While program promotions encourage program utilization and help your organization maximize its investment in the EAP, effective (frequent, varied, consistent messaging) promotions can sometimes be a practical challenge. There may be an almost overwhelming array of opportunities and available materials, but a limited amount of staff resources to plan and implement.

With that in mind, we offer some practical tips to effective program promotion that can save you time:

• Create a promotions workgroup. Identify three or four people, including your ValueOptions account executive, who can offer ideas, share contacts and do the work.
• Identify the existing communication vehicles at your organization. Are there newsletters, regular mailings, internal Web sites or special events that you can use to promote the program? Who manages those resources? Can this person be a member of your workgroup?
• Follow the ValueOptions promotional calendar, provided by your account executive, and push out related content through the communication vehicles you identified. Ask your workgroup members to pitch in if you need help modifying materials or creating anything new.
• Check the Achieve Solutions Web site for special topics you want to address, and simply copy and paste content in the format you need. ValueOptions grants its clients permission to distribute this content to employees and family members.
• Distribute the monthly Solutions e-newsletter. ValueOptions releases this on the first day of each month, offering several articles on a given theme, as well as a reminder of what the EAP is. When you receive it, simply forward it on to your employees. It already has your EAP toll-free phone number and Achieve Solutions Web site login information.
• Sponsor a lunch-and-learn program. ValueOptions can coordinate a workshop on a wide range of topics, and give you the tools for success. We have developed a practical handbook with tools and checklists to take you from planning to implementation without a lot of struggle.

One large organization that implemented a promotional strategy with these tactics found that 31 percent of program users accessed the program because of what they had seen in organizational communications versus 11 percent of program users who saw program brochures and posters alone.

For more practical solutions to program promotions, contact your ValueOptions account executive.